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Can Football Help Sirius Tackle More Subscribers?

Techstination feature for Thursday, September 9, 2004

Can football help Sirius tackle more subscribers? Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Sirius Satellite Radio says it needs two million subscribers to break even. At last count…it had only about one fourth that number. But it hopes alliances with NFL, College Sports Television and new receivers…will help it reach the million subscriber mark…half way to break even…by the end of the year. The new college sports content for football and basketball….follows a seven year contract with the NFL to make every game available to Sirius subscribers. And VP Sean Gibbons says Sirius is selling its own receiver…the Sportster… with some unique features for football fans…

"I can go in and have it remind me that my favorite team is playing on our NFL content. So every weekend, it will automatically alert me that, hey, my favorite football team is playing and jump me right to that channel if I want to hear that game. It will also allow me to program what we call the jump button, so that if I'm commuting to work and I'm listening to music and I want to get to our first Sirius traffic and weather, I can hit this button, it will check to see if the right report is on…if it is, it will take me right to it. If it's not, it will wait till that report starts and jump me to that traffic report."

Kits are available that allow the radio to be used in a car, as part of a home stereo system and a boom box will be available for it as well. Rival XM Satellite Radio has signed up more than two million subscribers and expects to be up to three million by the end of the year. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.